Plume

Plume is a public, EVM-compatible blockchain built as the onchain home for real-world assets (RWAs). It enables tokenized assets — such as private credit, U.S. Treasuries, ETFs, and commodities — to be used like native crypto: staked, swapped, lent, borrowed, and looped across DeFi. Designed for both retail users and institutions, Plume bridges traditional finance and crypto through a demand-driven, permissionless RWA finance (RWAfi) ecosystem.

How yield works on Plume

Most yield on Plume comes from Nest vaults — a set of investment pools built by the same team behind Plume. These vaults take in stablecoins (a type of crypto that stays near $1) and put that money to work in real-world assets that are normally only available to big institutions, like those managed by Superstate, Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Hamilton Lane, WisdomTree, and Janus Henderson.

Where the yield comes from

The vaults earn returns from a few distinct sources:

• Short-term U.S. government debt (Treasury bills) — via funds such as Superstate USTB and Janus Henderson. This is basically lending money to the U.S. government for a short period.
• Private credit — loans made to real businesses. This includes WisdomTree CRDYX and Apollo ACRDX, plus financing for payment-receivables through BlackOpal LiquidStone II.
• Delta-neutral crypto basis strategies — a tactic that captures the price gap between crypto spot markets and futures markets while avoiding directional bets on price.
• A diversified index vault (Nest Alpha) — which spreads money across several of the strategies above at once.

How users participate

You deposit stablecoins (USDC or Plume's own pUSD) into a vault and receive a vault-specific token in return (for example, nTBILL, nOPAL, nBASIS, or nALPHA). These tokens slowly rise in value as the underlying investments earn returns. You do not get separate dividend payments — the gain shows up in the token's price going up. There are no lockup periods; you can get your money back either instantly or on a scheduled timeline, depending on how liquid the vault's assets are.

What you can do with vault tokens

The vault tokens are composable (they work with other apps). You can:

• Use them as collateral to borrow more funds (via Nest Lending, powered by Morpho), potentially earning extra yield through leverage or looping.
• Trade them on decentralized exchanges like Rooster.
• Strip their future yield using Pendle YT (a tool that separates an asset from its future earnings).

Important to note

All vaults charge implicit fees through the spread between what the underlying assets earn and what the vault token's net asset value reflects. No fixed APY or emission schedules are published — every yield rate changes over time based on how the institutional assets perform.

Plume has raised at least $30 million in total funding. In December 2024, it closed a $20 million investment round led by Brevan Howard Digital, Haun Ventures, Lightspeed Faction, and Galaxy Ventures. In April 2025, Apollo Global Management made a "seven-figure" investment (undisclosed specific terms) to accelerate Plume's infrastructure buildout. Other backers listed on Plume's official website include YZi Labs, Superscrypt, Hashkey, Laser Digital, Selini, 250 Capital, Acapital, SVA, Animoca Ventures, Portal Ventures, and F prime.